The Kraken
by lightcudder
Summary: A trapped DSRV needs help. Can Gordon save the crew?


**The Kraken**

Below the thunders.

The words echoed in Gordon's mind as he checked the display dials. TB4 was making her way down to the sea bed, manoeuvring through the gradually darkening water, as TB2 circled above. The sea was heavy with swells and rolling waves and the weather above was appalling, but down here, below those thunders that Tennyson had written about, his world was still and calm and silent.

Powerful headlights illuminated the gloom as the small craft moved down from the surface. But it was not silent for much longer. As TB4 descended lower and lower, down under the ocean, he heard the beginnings of small creaks as her hull began to stress under the unaccustomed weight. He had only taken her to this depth once before and that was for a trial dive, just to test her capabilities.

This time it was for real.

Gordon, his mind almost on auto-pilot, thought back to those moments on Tracy Island when John had called from his Low Earth Orbit space station Thunderbird 5.

Thunderbird 5 calling Jeff Tracy.'

'Come in John.'

'Dad, we've had a call from the Oceanic Exploration Group. One of their Deep Submersible Research Vessels, The Kraken, has got stranded in the Marianas Trench. There are three scientists on board and the surface support ship has been unable to contact them. They think it's possible that they have simply damaged their radio but the surface ship is getting increasingly concerned for the team's safety.'

'Ok John, give us the last know co-ordinates and we'll go and have a look. ...... Gordon, Virgil; off you go. I don't think there much point in Thunderbird 1 going Scott, there will be nowhere for you to land, but you could go in Two and support Virgil. Hopefully this will be a simple search and rescue mission. Good luck boys.'

In TB4 Gordon rechecked his oxygen levels. All okay for now, and power consumption was nominal. Good. She was performing well.

The darkness was sporadically fractured by a glimpse of passing deep sea creatures; ghastly colourless monsters from a child's nightmare, with gaping maws and rows of teeth. A few of them had huge heads, which trailed away into insignificant bodies. All of them were grotesque.

They darted about in the midnight blackness, caught in the glare of his headlights. One quick vision and they were gone into their world of sickly night.

Gordon doubted if they could even see his brave little craft as she gamely proceeded into the chasm. Most of the abyssal life forms must, surely, be blind.

The hull continued to creak, and small pops and cracking noises joined in, creating an orchestral performance as the metal stressed under the pressure.

This was now deeper than she had ever gone before. He needed to concentrate. Needed to focus on watching the dials, watching the screen, checking and re-checking.

And there, in the soupy murk of light. Was that the rounded hull of the DSRV? He turned her towards the faint outline and she responded bravely, struggling in the heavy press of water that pushed in on all sides.

Disappointment. The long dead carcass of a blue whale, white bones arched over the dead expanse of sea bed. Small creatures, hideous in their deformities, crept over the skeletal remains, extracting every last scrap of nutrient from the corpse.

He was running out of time.

They were running out of time.

Slowly, carefully, he travelled along the flat, expressionless sea floor. Lifeless and colourless, it stretched out ahead of him until it faded into the fog-like gloom. The sea water was thick with detritus; decaying plankton, scraps of rotting seaweed, small corpses of creatures that once lived in the sunlit regions of the ocean, all floated in the murk.

It was increasingly difficult to see further than a couple of yards now and he was beginning to despair of ever finding the Kraken.

He checked his position. According to the last reported co-ordinates, he should be right on top of them. He spun his lithe little craft in a wide turn, circling the area, lights barely penetrating the thick shadows.

Then he noticed an imperceptible movement in the colloidal water. A gentle, almost delicate current like the waft of butterfly wings. If the DSRV had been caught in that, then it could have travelled some distance before coming to rest in the thick silted mud at the bottom of the trench.

It was worth a try. He let her float, with negative buoyancy, on the cold embrace of the current.

Minutes passed. And then, at last a beam of light caressed the side of TB4 as if it had been waiting for her to approach. The Kraken, still powered up, was there, sunk deeply into the clutching grasp of the centuries-old slime.

Gordon prepared TB4 for the process of extraction. She was still creaking mournfully with every manoeuvre, but he knew she would manage to hold out until he had finished his task.

He powered down the lights and life support knowing that she would need every last iota of energy she could spare for her magnetic grapples.

It was a difficult enough process pulling a stranded submersible from the continental shelf, but from this depth, with the greedy sea floor clinging to the DSRV, he knew he would struggle to get her loose.

Carefully he positioned TB4 and fired the grapples. Missed. He tried again and again, but the thick water deflected the lines and they failed to make contact.

Desperately he moved closer and tried once more, knowing that time was getting short.

The grapples connected with a satisfying metallic clang and he felt the resonance transmitted through the cables into TB4. He pulled back, as gently as if breaking away from a lover's kiss, gradually increasing the tension on the cables until they were taut and stressed to their limits.

The DSRV trembled with the tension, and slowly the black muck and slime gave up its prize. With mud and slutch slithering in ropey coils from its previously submerged hull, the Kraken broke loose from the clutches of the sea's graveyard and began to move towards TB4.

Gordon started her engines and began to ascend. He had noticed the effects of the decrease in life support and he reached for a spare oxygen tank to ameliorate the dizziness caused by the excess carbon dioxide.

He looked at his watch. Two hours. He had been down here for two hours. Virgil and Scott would be concerned by now. And it was still a long way to the surface. The sooner he got started the better.

He tightened the cables for the grapples and eventually the crippled exploration vehicle was close enough for him to use the fixed contact claws. He breathed a sigh of relief, blew the tanks and started to rise.

She shuddered under the strain but battled on, water dripping from the condensation that had formed inside her hull when the decreased life support had lowered the internal temperature.

Gordon wiped the screens to clear them, droplets of water flicking off his chilled fingers onto the floor. He realised how cold he was, despite his thick wetsuit. He had a spare environmental suit in the locker behind him and he wriggled into it, feeling the warmth return to his numb fingers and feet.

He wondered how the scientists in the Kraken were bearing up. By now they must surely be aware that they were no longer trapped in the silt and were moving upwards to safety, warmth and freedom.

Slowly, slowly, she made her way up, first into the shallower depths where refracted sunlight flickered in bands across the green water, then eventually up into the levels where rays of light pierced the surface and travelled sharply downwards like daggers. Shoals of silver fish darted around his little rescue craft as if to welcome them back to their bright world.

The weather had cleared when Gordon's yellow vessel broke through to the outside world. Virgil and Scott were waiting for him. He was glad to see them, and he powered his brave, exhausted little lady up into the safety of the Pod where she rested, the DSRV towed in behind her.

Gordon opened his hatch and stepped out, patting her on her hull in thanks for bringing him home again. He headed for the Kraken, ready to help the occupants out into the unfamiliar surroundings of the International Rescue pod.

He stopped.

Water was oozing in slow drips from the seams of the Kraken. Scott was already there, looking despairingly at Gordon.

'No!' Gordon's scream echoed across the cavernous pod. 'No. Scott, please tell me it isn't true.'

Scott lunged for his younger brother as Gordon reached for the airlock on the Kraken's hull. 'No Gordon. Don't. It's completely flooded inside. They have been dead for hours from the looks of it. You did your best. We all did.'

He held his brother tightly as Gordon wept, his tears hot and bitter, his head on Scott's shoulder. In the cockpit of Thunderbird Two Virgil piloted a slow, sad path to take the Kraken back to her home on land.

'In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.' he said quietly in remembrance.

Lightcudder


End file.
